Us, May 10, 2020: Roy, John, Leo, Shadow, Ondine
Us, May 10, 2020: Roy, John, Leo, Shadow, Ondine
We've had an early summer heatwave, not as bad as the later ones but still with temperatures in the mid to upper 90s where we live. Fortunately, with proper management of windows and fans, we stay pretty comfortable.
The Trump administration is frantically trying to open things up to get the economy moving in time for the general election in November, but the cost so far has been horrific, with record numbers of COVID-19 infections being reported every day and more and more hospitalizations and deaths among younger, formerly healthy people. Trump's campaign rallies have now been linked to outbreaks as well.
President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos ordered all schools to open for on-campus education in the fall, again acting against the recommendations of scientists and medical professionals.
Meanwhile, anti-vaxxers, creationists, and anti-female activists have gotten everything they could have wished for from recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, which have set in stone a sweeping set of religious exemptions from federal laws designed to protect public safety, education, and women.
California, which had opened - far too early, according to science - has now ordered all indoor activity, including indoor dining, to be shut down.
Meanwhile, sigh, Roy continues to go out freely to restaurants and other places with Danielle. It's like he's so alt-right now that either basic science is fake news to him, or it's real but irrelevant because his personal liberty is more important than the protection of everyone else including his own family.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker shows that COVID-19 has been confirmed in over 13,174,700 people worldwide, and has claimed over 574,700 lives. That's over 1,483,700 more cases and over 34,700 more deaths since last Tuesday. The U.S. now has over 3,394,000 confirmed cases and over 136,100 deaths, up over 430,800 cases and another 5,300 deaths since last Tuesday. In San Diego, our local toll exploded to 20,348 cases with 422 deaths.
In other news, the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship homeported in San Diego, caught fire during retrofitting. There were no fatalities and 59 minor injuries, mostly related to fighting a fire during a heatwave. It has burned now for over two days, and may be a write-off. If scrapped, the 40,000-ton mini-carrier would be one of the largest Navy ships to be lost, nearly as big as the WWII aircraft carrier USS Lexington which was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea. Because the Bonhomme Richard was being retrofitted, it had only a skeleton crew on board, which may be how the fire got out of control; there weren't enough people on hand to quickly smother it.
Both kints are now just kicking back enjoying a carefree summer vacation, playing online games, watching videos, and hanging out so there's no news there.
Ondine is on vacation this week! She took one week of a planned two-week vacation; we'd planned to go to Boston (in fact, we'd be there right now) to connect with her college friends. As it's turned out, she's had videoconferencing calls with the friends and she's turned her attention to pitching her completed novella to agents and developing her next book. She also plans to go to the beach at least once during this time.
John is busy with his cultural and physical anthropology classes. And, he just enrolled in three classes at City College in the Fall! (Total enrollment fees, $22 after California Dream Act.) He's really enjoying his classes so far, and is aiming toward a certificate in archaeology and possible re-employment by the end of next year.
The hawk fledglings are growing up, and it's been amazing to watch them develop! The hawk parents are nowhere to be seen, but they successfully
raised three chicks, who are now actively hunting and patrolling the area around our house, based out of their original nesting tree in the house behind
our back yard. We've seen a few successful kills, too, mostly in the gully behind our house and in the side yard of the Golub's house next door. Here's
one of the trio in the tree, his or her tail is getting longer!
Neighborhood gas prices are about $3.29 per gallon.
Back to the Archives page
Back to the Kuraoka Family
main page
Forward to the next Weekly Journal, July 21 2020.